


rewrite the end

by hulklinging



Series: Sapphic Somewhere [4]
Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Blood, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8277836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Billy won't let their story end like this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt “I know it hurts, but you need to hold on a little longer, okay?”

It's not how Billy was told this would go. 

Ways she's considered her own death - blaze of glory. Freak accident. The others deeming her too dangerous and putting her down. Her own hand.

She has thought about her own death quite a bit. 

Ways she has not considered - hands covering the wound that should be healing but isn't, because they were stuck bleeding out in a power vacuum. Blood between her fingers and invading every one of her senses.

It would be better if it were her own. 

“Teddy? Hang in there, babe, please…”

There's a hole in her chest, and Billy aches with it, even as she leans into it with her weight, hoping that if she can just apply enough pressure the bleeding will stop. Teddy whimpers at the added weight, and Billy feels a sick sort of happiness, because if she's making noise she's still alive.

“Billy,” she breathes, and Billy can't help it, hearing her name forced out of those lips breaks her heart, and her eyes start to overflow with tears. “Billy, it hurts…”

The tears blur her vision, make the wound seem smaller, even as Billy leans in and presses a shaky kiss to Teddy’s cheek. There’s blood on her mouth, and it stains her girlfriend’s cheek like lipstick. It makes her sick. 

“I know it hurts, but you need to hold on a little longer, okay?”

Teddy nods. Her body as a whole looks smaller, and Billy’s not sure if her own panic or Teddy losing control of her shapeshifting is at fault. 

“You should… Go,” she says, after another long minute. “They're going to… come back.”

“M’not leaving you, so you can just forget about that.”

“Bee…”

“Shh, babe.”

It's not fair, it's  _ not fair,  _ because if they were anywhere else Billy could heal her. If they were anywhere else, Teddy would already have healed herself. 

The depowered spot is small. It didn't have to be big. It was a trap, set up for them, and Billy fell for it and Teddy is still falling and Billy with her, because Teddy is light and sunshine and without her Billy will go blind.

“You shouldn't have stepped between us.”

Teddy’s hand found her’s, still pressing on the wound. She had used her cape as something to soak up the blood, red on red on red, and against it Teddy’s hand looks so pale. Her grip is so weak already. 

“Billy, I love you,” she manages. “But shut up. Of course… Of course I should have.” She smiles, and Billy wants to crumple. “It's my job.”

There’s so many responses Billy wants to give to that, but all she can think of to say is “I love you too, Teddy. S-so much.”

And then Teddy goes very silent, and very still, and Billy loses her absolute mind.

“No, we’re not doing this. This is not how we go, Ted, this isn’t.”

With frantic hands, she tugs the cape under Teddy and around, tying it as tight as she can over the wound. The blood seems to be slowing, but she doesn’t trust that to be a good thing, not anymore.

That done, she bends down and wraps her hands around Teddy’s arms. She’s going to drag them out of this. So what if her girlfriend is almost double her weight? She has desperation on her side.

There’s no way she can pick Teddy up, so instead she is dragging her through the slick grass and the mud, hoping every step is bringing her closer to feeling her power come pouring back into her limbs. Billy was already tired, from the chase and the fight, but now she is crawling towards exhaustion, every step feeling harder, every breath feeling ripped from her lungs.

_ Stay alive,  _ she thinks.  _ Just stay alive for me. _

She’s not sure how long she struggles before she hits what must be the edge of the dead zone. There’s a ‘pop’ she swears is audible, and suddenly the buzzing in her limbs is not exhaustion but power. Just to be sure, she pulls Teddy a few final feet before keeling over next to her.

“Come on,” she whispers, and undoes the cape with numb fingers.

Teddy’s wound is still as raw and ugly as before.

That’s not right. She should be healing. Even in the Cube, when Teddy was unconscious, she healed…

Billy scrambles to get her fingers on Teddy’s neck, wastes precious seconds trying to find any sign of life. There’s nothing. Teddy, always so warm and bright, is growing cold in front of her, and Billy’s best simply was not good enough.

“No,” Billy whispers. “No, no, you can’t do this to me Teddy, you can’t leave me like this!”

She’s babbling, clinging to Teddy’s face, because if she just looks there maybe she’s just sleeping, maybe if she can just figure out the fairytale she can wake her up. True love’s kiss, breaking the glass, climbing the tower…

“Wake up,” she begs. “Wake up, wake up,  _ wake up! _ ”

Nothing changes. Of course it doesn’t. She remembers talking with Nico, somewhere in the seams between being tortured and saying goodbye.

“Magic can’t create life,” she had said. “Only imitate it.”

She had looked so sad, Billy could tell it was a lesson learned through experience. The lesson is bouncing around her head now, but she can’t not try, she has to do something.

That might be a limit of magic, but Teddy is always saying she’s more than magic. Billy is a world-maker. Billy is a writer of reality.

This will not be the end of their story.

Billy doesn’t have the words inside her for this. She’s never had any words for what Teddy 

means to her, or perhaps she’s always had too many. But she stares at Teddy’s closed eyes, and her static chest, and she reaches deep inside her, deep enough to see stars, and pulls at the ball of raw power there.

It feels like life. Her life. But she doesn’t need all of it, not if it means losing Teddy. She tugs at it until it starts to fray, and feeds the end of the string into her fingertips. She rubs her hands together, then pulls them apart like a prayer, before pressing them back to the wound. Blood red mixes with bright blue, and slowly leaks into Teddy’s skin. 

She feels the changes before she sees them, feels skin reforming beneath her fingers. Slowly, the colour comes back to Teddy’s skin. But there’s still no rise and fall of her chest, no heartbeat pumping the new blood through her body. Billy has a beautiful corpse in front of her, but she is still a corpse.

Billy leans in, gives Teddy the gentlest of kisses, and lets her lifeforce flow freely between them. She makes a circuit, between her hands and her lips, not just pushing her power into her but burning through her, moving faster and faster until the lines between the two girls blur.

Teddy’s eyes shoot open, and with that, Wilhelmina Kaplan has raised the dead.

She pulls away, but doesn’t want to let go, afraid that if she does, Teddy’s eyes will close for good.

“Billy?” Teddy says, sounding confused but clear, no more blood flooding her lungs now, and Billy buries her face in Teddy’s neck and breaks into whole body-shaking sobs. Teddy’s arms wrap around her, strong and secure, and there they lay, until Billy’s sobs have dissipated into a shaking she can’t seem to stop. She’s so tired, her power reserves completely empty, but Teddy’s alive beneath her, and that’s all that matters.

And if Teddy’s eyes glow with Billy’s power, even weeks later, if Billy closes her eyes and sees stars instead of darkness, if they know where each other is without having to even look, well. It’s all a small price to pay, to both still be breathing.

Billy has had enough of sadness. She will give them a happy ending, if she has to tear apart the universe and put it back together again to get there.


End file.
